I have put MT to use within my research into reducing public speaking anxiety, with students practicing mindfulness before at-home presentation practices (Brunotte, 2021b). Within my program, this was done along with CBT-based writing exercises in which students explored their own distorted thinking about their speaking abilities. When designing this program, I first looked at how psychotherapists and psychology researchers use mindfulness teachings and presented these research findings to students before beginning the activities. When students know that you are teaching mindfulness using evidence-based methods and a science-based approach, they are more likely to be receptive to the process you are presenting.

First, I would suggest sharing with students the evidence for mental health improvements through MT. Students often enter the classroom already suffering from anxiety, depression, or stress (Brunotte, 2019), and may be looking for ways to improve their situation. Mindfulness has now found wide-scale use within psychotherapy, and is often referred to as MBIs (mindfulness-based interventions). A meta-analysis by Hofmann et al. (2010) found that MBIs are effective in combatting anxiety and mood disorders. For the population I teach (university students), even short-term MBIs have been shown to be effective in the US in treating anxiety, depression and stress (Parcover et al., 2018). This reduction in stress is evident, even with those experiencing severe physical ailments, such as cancer patients (Specs et al., 2000).

As someone who also studies students’ sleep habits and other health choices, I find it promising that mindfulness training can help lead to better physical health as well, as MT has been shown to allow students to make better health-related choices, leading to better long-term health (Murphy et al., 2012). Sharing these types of studies with students before teaching mindfulness not only grounds your lesson in science, but also encourages the use of these techniques by demonstrating that others have already benefitted from such practices.

Perhaps even better news for teachers and students is that MT can improve brain function and learning outcomes as well. Making mindfulness part of your teaching can mean that students learn better the other material and skills you present as part of your course work. The effects of mindfulness on learning include: 1. Improvements to learning processes, teamwork between classmates, and the overall learning environment (Wang & Liu, 2016); 2. Improvements to attention and memory (Zanesco et al., 2019); 3. Improved test-taking skills (such as better time-management during assessments) (Osgood et al., 2017); 4. Improved visual memory, such as facial recognition (Giannou et al., 2021), and more.